The Family
by L. Emmist
Summary: Just your average family: two war heroes, three wolves, a morphing genius, and a pyromaniac. -- Enjoy Chapter 2! --
1. Chapter One

Author's Note - I didn't try and fix KAA's ending. I ignored it. Now you know!  
  
Another Author's Note - This story, although it's still in development, takes a backseat to my primary project, "The Heretic." So, all you "Family" enthusiasts, go and review "Heretic" and this will be moved up to the top of my list sooner!  
  
Disclaimer - The Animorphs were originally conceived by KA Applegate for her series "Animorphs" and should not be interpreted as belonging to me in any way shape or form. Now sit back, adjust your seat, dim the lights and enjoy the show.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
======== The Family ========  
  
  
  
Chapter One:  
  
  
  
"Freedom!" Mom called.  
  
Yo. I lifted my head off my paws lazily, bringing my ears forward.  
  
"Have you seen Marco?"  
  
The famous one or the super-famous one?   
  
"Your brother," she sighed.  
  
I stretched, and stood. Licking my chops, I followed the scent of brown paper and groceries to the kitchen. Oh, the famous one. Nope, not since breakfast. What did he do?   
  
She peered at me over a supermarket bag. "Nothing. I bought him something, that's all."  
  
I circled the island in the middle of our huge kitchen, looking up at her as she lifted eggs from the bag. A muzzle, I hope.   
  
"Freedom," she chided.  
  
Actually, never mind. A muzzle can't stop thoughtspeech. But the boy howls.   
  
"Just because he's more in touch with the inner wolf than you are . . . " she began, a twinkle in her eye. It was an old joke of ours.  
  
Yeah, well, my outer wolf wants a scratch on the left shoulder.   
  
Obligingly, she dug her fingers into my fur and began itching.  
  
Oh, sorry. Do I need to back up?  
  
My name is Freedom. Yeah, that's right. You guessed it. My dad is Jake. *The* Jake. Jake, leader of the Animorphs, hero of Earth. Jake, voted into the presidency without even running. Jake, who refused the title, or anything to do with national leadership. Jake, with about nine hundred high schools and art galleries and monuments named after him and his friends.  
  
For all that, he still moves a pretty fast driftball.  
  
Obviously, my mom - the, short, cute woman who was scratching my back - is Cassie. The one who's pretty much single-handedly saving the bald eagle, humpback whale, the Bengal tiger, the gorilla, and the wolf. Cassie, who is the best and brightest spokesperson for all of the Animorphs. I don't know how she did during the war, but she sure shone in the aftermath. My mom is Cassie, who's heading up the expedition to revive the dodo while running an insane household.  
  
That's enough to go on for now. If you've been living under a rock somewhere and don't know everything about my family, you'll pick it up as I go.  
  
Tom wandered in, glanced at Mom and me, grunted, and began rooting through the groceries.  
  
"Hello to you too," Mom said, abandoning my spine to its own devices. She straightened.  
  
"Did you buy me any army men?" Tom asked, scrambling up onto the counter. Tom is my youngest brother, and he has almost as much of an attitude as I do. He's a little more bent on destruction, though. "I still need more bazooka guys!"  
  
"You've got plenty of bazooka guys," Mom said, pulling him off the counter. "You have a zillion army men, you don't need any more."  
  
"But I want to make a big battle! Like when the Andalites came to Earth when you were a soldier!" He lifted a banana and used it to fire at imaginary enemies. "Take that, crummy Yeerks! Badabadabadabadaba-ba-BAM!"  
  
I saw Mom's eyes grow old, the way they do whenever the war is mentioned. I put my ears back in a frown. Hey, Tom, I barked, interrupting his fantasy.  
  
He blinked, and focused on me. "Yeah?"  
  
There's something you've got to see in the East Attic.   
  
"What?"  
  
Something cool, I said. In private thoughtspeech, I whispered, A sparrow died up there.   
  
"Wow!" he said, and began running to the far corner of the house. One of the perks of being the son of a war hero is a ridiculously huge house. It would be a full twenty minutes before he came back and accused me of lying.  
  
"Did you tell him about the sparrow?" Mom asked.  
  
I looked at her, surprised. You knew about that?   
  
"I know about everything that goes on in this house. You didn't kill it, did you?"  
  
Of course not.   
  
"But you did clean it up."  
  
Of course.   
  
Rachel loped in. She's the second of the litter. She, Marco and I were all born at the same time. The doctors are still speculating as to whether we were originally triplets or whether the cell morphed to wolf and then split.  
  
Oh, and for those who haven't heard, children of morph-capable people are morph-capable themselves. And the womb is like a constant state of morph. In theory, Marco, Rachel, and I started human, but morphed to wolf at some point in the pregnancy. We liked it there and stayed. When we were born, the fact that we were wolves and still in a state of morph meant that our wolf bodies were our natural bodies. Interesting, huh?  
  
Rachel is smaller than me, and darker. She's also got all the energy of a sloth with sleeping sickness. Why was Tom running towards the East corner? she yawned.  
  
To see a dead sparrow that I cleaned up.   
  
Ah.   
  
"Rachel, have you seen Marco?"  
  
She nodded. All three of we wolves nodded, shrugged, and affected all sorts of human gestures. Sure. He's out chasing his tail on the Southwest Lawn.   
  
Our own little genius, I sniggered.  
  
"Can you call him for me? I got him something."  
  
Sure. MARCO! her thoughtspeech reverberated painfully in our heads. MOM WANTS YOU TO COME TO THE UPSTAIRS KITCHEN!   
  
"*Private* thoughtspeech!" Mom winced.  
  
Oh. Sorry.   
  
On the edge of our minds, I heard Marco's faint thoughtspeech. Did you say the upstairs kitchen?   
  
I assumed Rachel responded in private thoughtspeech.  
  
Shortly thereafter, I heard the pounding and scrabbling of Marco racing through the halls. Time! he cried.  
  
Two minutes, forty-one seconds, Rachel reported. She has the best internal clock of all of us, and made a habit of timing everything and everyone. Not bad, coming from the Southwest Lawn.   
  
Better than you could do, he puffed.  
  
What did you break coming in? I asked.  
  
Nothing, he said.  
  
"Nothing?" Mom raised her eyes skeptically.  
  
Nothing important, he amended. That ugly pink vase from Japan.   
  
Oh, that's all right, Rachel said. It wasn't a present from anybody.   
  
"Freedom, would you mind cleaning that up?"  
  
I'm not sure why, but cleaning up messes has always been my job. It's just the way our family runs.  
  
Sure. I wandered out, down the hallway. Behind me, I could hear Marco's enthusiastic cheers as Mom gave him whatever it was she had gotten him. I had a good idea what it was. Marco and Mom share a love for these cutesy little ceramic mice, and always buy them for each other at every opportunity.  
  
I pawed open a door, and tugged one of my vacuum cleaners out of it. Our whole house was made wolf-friendly a few weeks after we were born. When I was ten, there had been a national contest for middle-schoolers for conveniences designed for wolves. As a result, I think we, the litter, were the most spoiled people in the house.  
  
Hey, fame definitely has its perks.  
  
I scooted the machine down the hall, to where shattered pottery littered the floor. Some of the pieces were too big to be vacuumed.  
  
I had collected a good number of the bigger pieces when my thoughts were interrupted by Tobax.  
  
"Freedom, when I morph cat, which do you like better? When I grow the fur first, then start the body changes, or if I just let my head go cat, and then the rest from the top down?"  
  
I looked up. My very blond, very blue-eyed, slightly loopy sister was eyeing me earnestly. As usual, she was obsessing about the finer points of a morph.  
  
Tobax is the spitting image of my Aunt Rachel. She's also an absolute, total genius when it comes to morphing. She can transform into a tick, and make the change something people would pay to see. I've even seen her go directly from one morph to another, when she was really well rested and concentrating incredibly hard. She's overstayed the two-hour morph limit before, then morphed back.  
  
Every college on Earth would pay to have one of us attend. But Tobax had received invitations from the Andalite Morphing Academies. She's actually that good.  
  
Carefully, I dropped the shattered pottery into a trash bin. I don't know. Which do you like better?   
  
"They both have their strengths," she sighed. "I can't decide!"  
  
Have you considered letting your ears change first, then having the fur spread down from there?   
  
She paused, considering. "Hey, that'd be good!" she chirped. "I'll have to try that! Thanks!" She darted off, presumably to practice the morph.  
  
I grunted, and finished separating out the large shards out from the pile. I pawed the switch, and sucked the rest of the vase up. Eyeing my handiwork critically, I wagged my tail and nudged the vacuum back into the closet.  
  
Tom rounded the corner and glared at me. "There wasn't *either* a dead sparrow up there!" 


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two:  
  
  
  
That evening, Dad came home at the same time as usual. You probably already know this, but after the war ended, Dad finished high school and college, then went on to become - of all things - a math teacher. I once got Mom to sort of explain his reasons.  
  
"In math," she had said, "there's always just one right answer."  
  
Whatever that meant.  
  
Dad also coaches the high school driftball team. Driftball had been imported by the Andalites, and was fast becoming a very popular and very competitive sport. Not to brag, or anything, but my Dad turned out to be one of the best driftball coaches there is.  
  
Dad isn't as tall as they make him look in statues and movies. He's got brown hair, brown eyes, and your normal, everyday, adult face. Except for his eyes. I've never seen deeper emotion expressed than in the eyes of my father.  
  
Tonight, his eyes were happy. "Hi, Freedom!" he called, dropping his driftball sash on a couch. "Hi, Tobax. Hello," he said, his tone becoming sweet and low, "Mommy."  
  
"Ewwwww, gross! They're kissing!" exclaimed Tom.  
  
Mom disentangled herself from Dad, and gave Tom a look. "This from the boy who wants to know if we can eat dead dog?"  
  
Tobax was perched on the arm of the couch. "He didn't ask that, did he?"  
  
Rachel nodded. He did.   
  
"Sick."  
  
"It was just a question!" Tom defended.  
  
"A sick question."  
  
Who's sick? Marco asked, bounding into the room.  
  
"Nobody is."  
  
"Tom."  
  
"I'm not either!"  
  
You should take VitaPill! Good and good for you, VitaPill keeps you going strong, all day long! Uphill, upstairs, inside and out, VitaPill will make you feel better, because it's better for you! VitaPill - remember, "vita" is Latin for "life!"   
  
We stared at him.  
  
Dad turned to Mom. "Cassie, are you sure there isn't some of Ax in that boy?"  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
"You know best." He picked up an apple, and started shining it on his shirt. "Hey, when's dinner?"  
  
"That depends," Mom replied. "Who's hungry for what?"  
  
"I want Chinese!"  
  
Steak.   
  
"Fondue!"  
  
Steak would be nice.   
  
"I said Chinese!"  
  
Hey, can we have steak?   
  
"What does manna taste like?"  
  
Mom and Dad exchanged a glance. "Steak?"  
  
"Steak," Mom confirmed. "I'll call Alphonze." Alphonze is our cook. He and the cleaning service are the only staff we hire.  
  
Dad snatched the phone out of Mom's hands, and dropped it back in the cradle. "I feel like grilling tonight, Mom."  
  
"Fine by me," she said. "Must have been a good day on the driftball court."  
  
"Actually, not that great," he called over his shoulder as he headed into the kitchen. "But this one kid I've been teaching *nailed* a concept he's been having trouble with!"  
  
"Which student?" Mom asked.  
  
I smelled the wash of fragrances as he opened the freezer door. "JF!" was the muffled reply.  
  
"Oh, wonderful! How's his mother doing?"  
  
Dad came back into the room with a plateful of frozen steak. "His mother?"  
  
"You know, she had that case of pneumonia?"  
  
Dad looked blank.  
  
"Jake, you are so clueless sometimes, it's adorable."  
  
Dad teaches the kids, but Mom knows them all better than he does. It's just this way my mom has with people. Pretty cool.  
  
The phone rang.  
  
"I'll get it!" Tom cried, lunging for the phone. "H'lo?" He glanced at Dad. "Yeah, hang on." He handed the device off to Dad. "Some lady."  
  
"Tom, you're supposed to find out who's calling first," Mom admonished softly.  
  
Dad settled a tolerant smile onto his face. It's the smile he uses when someone he doesn't know is on the phone. We used to get a lot of weirdoes calling up, and so he had mastered the art of patient politeness over the years. "Hello? Yes, this is Jake. I'm sorry, who?" His eyes grew wide. His smile became a grin. "Hey! Good to hear from you! Wow, where are you?"  
  
Somebody he knows, Rachel commented privately.  
  
No duh, I replied.  
  
Dad was leaning on the counter, this big, goofy, happy look playing over his face. Over the line, we could all hear a woman's voice, saying something excitedly.  
  
Mom leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching her husband.  
  
Jealous, Mom?   
  
"Maybe I should be," she muttered.  
  
"Oh, so you're still . . . right. Uh-huh. So, how did the meeting go? . . . Do I have to order you?" He laughed. "Yeah, okay. That's fair. . . . what? Oh, that was Tom. . . . Yeah, I know! I can't believe it!" He mussed Tom's hair fondly.  
  
Marco and I exchanged a look. Okay, whoever this lady was, she had gotten Dad's attention.  
  
"So are you . . . oh, okay. . . . yeah. No, why?" He stopped talking and listened for a while. His eyes got bigger and bigger. So, if possible, did his smile. "Awesome," he breathed.  
  
Okay, Dad wasn't really the type to use turn-of-the-mil slang like that. Something was definitely up.  
  
"That would be so cool," he said. He began digging through a stack of papers on his desk. Without even asking what he needed, Mom handed him his PalmComp. They have that kind of relationship. He tapped it a few times, then began speaking enthusiastically again. "Yeah, nothing planned! Sure, I'll have to clear it with . . . yeah, exactly. They sure do. Okay, then. I have to talk this over with them, but it looks good. . . . Right, okay . . . all right! See you soon, I hope!"  
  
He hung up the phone, and turned a glowing face to Mom. "That," he announced, "was Rachel."  
  
I glanced at my lethargic sister. Not her. Oh! He meant 'the' Rachel. Rachel the Animorph. Aunt Rachel!  
  
"Rachel!" Mom gasped. "And you didn't let me talk to her?"  
  
"She was calling from space, and only had a three minute transmission time," he apologized. "She'll call again tomorrow."  
  
"So she and Tobias are back from that Interspecies Peace Meeting?"  
  
Dad nodded.  
  
"How did it go?"  
  
He shrugged. "She couldn't discuss it." He glanced down at his PalmComp, then back up at Mom again. "Honey, we need to talk."  
  
"Happy talk or hard talk?" she murmured.  
  
"Happy."  
  
"Good." She slipped her hand into his, and looked down at me. "Freedom, see that that meat gets put away and have Alphonze cook something, will you?"  
  
Oui, madame, I grunted, imitating Alphonze's French voice.  
  
That night, my mom and my dad agreed to take Rachel up on her invitation. Six weeks later, we were in an Andalite shuttle, on our way to the "Mona Lisa," the ambassadorial ship that carried Ambassador Tobias, his wife Rachel, and their daughter, Shorm. 


End file.
